Talk:Ziad Abdelnour

Edit note
I reverted a series of changes by User:ZNKMA‎ which were all based on citing Wikipedia. Primary or stable secondary sources are preferred (see Help:References.) --Bob Burton 17:18, 12 July 2009 (EDT)

Edit note
User:ZNKMA returned and created a new, and again unreferenced page on Abdelnour. Creating a new page does not solve the problem of inadeauate referencing. I have deleted the duplicate page and posted the text below. --Bob Burton 05:52, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Ziad K. Abdelnour is a Lebanese American financier and lobbyist with extensive connections with the Wall Street and Washington political, government and intelligence establishments having served since 1994 as a friend and advisor to a number of agencies and organizations associated with such entities in various capacities; especially when dealing with fiscal and foreign policy matters.

Abdelnour is also the President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. ; a New York based private equity ”family office” that focuses on originating, structuring and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations, buildups, and growth capital financings.

Personal life
Ziad K. Abdelnour was born in Beirut, Lebanon to a long line family of politicians and financiers. He is the son of Lebanese industrialist and former MP Khalil Abdelnour (1992-2000) and the nephew of former Lebanese financier and MP Salem Abdelnour (1960-1964 and 1972-1992). He holds a M.B.A in financial engineering from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut.

Career
Abdelnour began his career as a management trainee with the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City; then under the leadership of David Rockefeller in 1982. He then joined American Express Bank in 1984 as an officer in their Global Wealth Management Group in 1984 followed by a meteoric rise at Drexel Burnham Lambert High Yield Bond Department from 1985 till the firm’s demise in 1990.

From 1990 till 2005, Abdelnour held senior positions as an investment and merchant banker at a number of Wall Street firms including European American Advisors; Inc.; THCG Inc. (formerly Hambro America Securities) and Ladenburg Thalmann where his responsibilities included investing, financing and restructuring over 100 companies spanning the industrial, logistics, consumer and manufacturing industries both in the US as well as in emerging markets.

Since the formation of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. in 2005, Abdelnour has been serving as a trusted advisor to a number of the largest family offices in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and a turnaround investor in a number of companies where Blackhawk’s corporate capital commitment comes either through acquiring those and other companies through their distressed debt or through the chapter 11 process.

Since 1985, Abdelnour has been involved in over 125 transactions totaling over $30 billion in the investment banking, high yield bond and distressed debt markets and has been widely recognized for playing an integral role in those three key market sectors.

Abdelnour is a regular panelist and speaker on private equity and venture capital topics at industry conferences nationwide and a business angel investor in over a dozen ventures

Political activism
Abdelnour is Founder and President of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon, Former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America, Member of the Board of Governors of the Middle East Forum, and currently putting together with a number of high profile financiers a PAC that will be lobbying members of Congress on ways and means of bridging the gap between Washington DC and Wall Street.

Writings

 * Daniel Pipes and Ziad Abdelnour, Ending Syria's occupation of Lebanon: The US Role, Lebanon Study Group Report (Middle East Forum, May 2000)

Affiliations

 * Blackhawk Partners, LLC
 * Middle East Forum
 * Arab Bankers Association of North America

External links - Biographical Notes

 * Bridging the US Middle East Divide
 * The Blackhawk Team
 * Arab Americans in Finance: The Leaders of the Pack
 * On the Private Equity Business
 * On Company Due Diligence
 * On Energy Costs

[[category:finance